TERESA STANLEY
MIXED MEDIA ARTIST
B. 1956 USA
My work is shaped by my environmental concerns and has most recently focused on the subject of flowers and houseplants. I feel that our relationship as humans to the natural world is suffused with a romantic longing for connection, leading us to fill our domestic interiors with plants.

My work is shaped by my environmental concerns and has most recently focused on the subject of flowers and houseplants. I feel that our relationship as humans to the natural world is suffused with a romantic longing for connection, leading us to fill our domestic interiors with plants. I value plants for their beauty but I am also impressed with how clever they are at adapting to changes in their environment, communicating via their root systems and developing characteristics that ensure their survival. Despite this apparent resiliency, plant species are disappearing at an extinction rate that is 500 times faster than they would be without human influence. Some of them exist only as commercially grown products in gardening centers, their counterpoints in the wild long vanished.
In this recent series of paintings, I use images of plants that are extinct or very rare or who are simply strange hybrids that spring from my imagination. They are either depicted as part of an imaginary greenhouse where they are being sheltered or as voids surrounded by the noise and chaos of the outside world. These scenarios can also be seen as reflecting our own precarious position within the ecosphere. Does the noisy external world of the artificial now exist more vividly in our day-to-day reality than our memory of our very fragile and necessary natural environment? Will future generations experience the natural world from within the environment of sheltering greenhouses, where plants cross-breed and hybridize, creating specimens that no longer have any practical characteristics?
These works on paper and panel are made with acrylic, utilizing graphite and collage elements made with paper that I hand paint as well as vintage maps, fabrics and other ephemera.
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AVAILABLE WORK
THERESA STANLEY CV
Selected Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
2019 Teresa Stanley: Eden Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2018 Teresa Stanley: Reservoir Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
2017 Teresa Stanley: The Water Seekers HSU Third Street Gallery, Eureka, CA
2015 Teresa Stanley: Paintings Annex Gallery, CSU Sacramento
Teresa Stanley: The Mid-Day Garden Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, California
2012 Teresa Stanley: New Paintings Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, California
Teresa Stanley: Treasure 555 California Street Lobby, San Francisco,
Teresa Stanley: Treasure 199 Fremont Street Lobby, San Francisco
2011 Teresa Stanley: New Paintings Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, California
2009 Teresa Stanley: Paintings Piante Gallery, Eureka, California
2006 Teresa Stanley: Works on Paper 2004-2006 Stellar Somerset Gallery, Palo Alto, California
2004 Teresa Stanley: New Paintings Stellar Somerset Gallery, Palo Alto, California
2003 Leslie Price/Teresa Stanley New Paintings Humboldt State University, First Street Gallery
2002 Off the Canvas: Geometry and Space Olive Hyde Gallery, Fremont, California
1998 Teresa Stanley: Moving Pictures Pence Gallery, Davis, California
Teresa Stanley/Stephanie Peek: 3-D Painters Modesto Junior College Art Gallery, Modesto, California
1997 Teresa Stanley: Recent Paintings Carnegie Museum, Eureka, California
1996 Teresa Stanley: New Paintings and Drawings Reese Bullen Gallery, Humboldt State University
1991 Introductions 91: Teresa Stanley and Shelley Jordan William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, California
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 Then and Now Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA (online)
Solid Ground LaFontsee Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI
Wild Lands Jen Tough Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico (online)
2019 Hold Dear, LaFontsee Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI
Revive LaFontsee Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI
Open Ended LaFontsee Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI
2018 Common Threads, Clay and Canvas Gallery, Eureka, CA
Coalesce LaFontsee Gallery, Grand Rapids, MI
2017 The Art of the Flower Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO group invitational
William Rainey, Theresa Robinson, Robert Roth, Teresa Stanley 4-person exhibit
Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2016 HSU Staff and Faculty Haldan Gallery, South Lake Tahoe Community College
2014-17 San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art Connect & Collect, San Jose, CA
2014 Parallel Play Prographica Gallery, Seattle, WA
2013 Botanically Inclined Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, California
2012 Affordable Art Fair Los Angeles (with Anelle Gandleman Fine Art, NY)
Art: Hamptons International Art Fair, New York (with Anelle Gandleman Gallery, NY)
2011 Abstraction Piante Gallery, Eureka, CA
Affordable Art Fair NYC (with Anelle Gandleman Fine Art, NY)
Introduction Group Show K. Imperial Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Art Fair (with Bryant Street Gallery) SF, CA
2010 Faculty Exchange Exhibit California State University, Stanislaus
2008 Red Dot Art Fair, New York, New York (with Bryant Street Gallery)
2nd Biannual Exhibition of Small Work Todd Gallery, Middle Tennesee State University. Juror Dave Hickey (catalog)
2007 10th Anniversary Art Exhibit Golden Foundation for the Arts, New Berlin, New York (catalog)
2005 The Art of the Small Painting Stellar Somerset Gallery, Palo Alto, California
2003 African Artists/American Artists American Embassy, Nairobi, Kenya
Artists Council 34th Annual National Juried Exhibition Palm Springs Desert Museum
Publications
2019 Manifest Gallery, “International Painting Annual No. 9” an exhibition in print (hardcover book)
2018 Murphy, Rachel and Weber, Dalton “The Water Seekers” (exhibition catalog)
2016 Studio Visit Magazine Summer 2016, Open Studio Press
Woven Tale Press Volume IV, No. 8 October 2016
2010 Reyner, Nancy Acrylic Innovations: Styles and Techniques of 64 Visionary Artists Northlight Books, October 2010
2010 Studio Visit Magazine Volume 11, Summer 2010, Open Studios Press
2010 Humboldt State University Faculty Exchange Show CSU Stanilaus (catalog)
2008 Nuell, Lon, Hickey, Dave “12 x 12 Tennessee State University” (exhibition catalog)
2007 Murray, Mary E. “Golden Foundation for the Arts 1997-2007” (catalog for the 10th Anniversary Exhibition)
2004 Stellar, James “Teresa Stanley: Paintings” (catalog)
2003 Robertson, Gwen “Teresa Stanley: Keyholes” (exhibition catalog)
Selected Bibliography
2021 KEET-TV, PBS Affiliate “Northcoast Artists Series” interview about my work. To be broadcast Spring 2022.
Hess, Erika “Studio Visit Artist: Teresa Stanley” I Like Your Work podcast, December 2021
Massey, Christina “Featured Artist: Teresa Stanley” WoArts blog
2020 Greenland, Stephen “Featured Artist: Teresa Stanley” Pigment On Line, October 2020
2018 Gopinath, Gabrielle “Authentic Threads” review The North Coast Journal, July 5, 2018
2017 Gopinath, Gabrielle “Water Seekers and Pretty Ones” review The North Coast Journal October 4, 2017
Butler, Wendy “Art Waves: Teresa Stanley” Interview on KHSU about my exhibit at Third Street Gallery
2016 Jaegar, Emily “Interview: Teresa Stanley: The dance between the scientific inquiry and the artistic one.” Woven Tales Press, October 2016
2011 Evans, Richard "Abstracted" The Northcoast Journal December 1, 2011
Alderson, Julie “My 4-year-old Cannot Do This” How to Look at Abstract Painting “ Humboldt Magazine Spring 2011
2009 Butler, Wendy “Art Waves” KHSU Radio interview about my work.
2004 “Golden Grant for NorCal artist” Artweek May 2004
2002 Beeler, Monique "Canvas can't contain this exhibit at Olive Hyde" The Argus May 2002
1998 Stutzin, Leo “Artists show three-dimensional works” Modesto Bee February 1998
Servis, Nancy M. “Big Plans in Store at Pence Gallery” The Davis Enterprise January 1998
Moyle, Marilyn “Third Saturday Openings” a New Trend for Davis Art?” The Davis Enterprise January 1998
Harrington, Shayne “The Pence Gallery Collection Unites Structure with Chaos with Teresa Stanley’s Moving Pictures” The California Aggie February 1998
1997 “Painted Sculpture: Abstract art inspired by old buildings” The
Times Standard September 1997
1995 SF MOMA News March/April 1995 pg. 19 (reproduction)
Thyme, Jolene “Abstraction Show focuses on lesser-known artists” Contra Costa Times, January 1995
1994 Wilson, Sally, “The Big Picture” Diablo Arts Magazine Dec/Feb 1994
Education
M.F.A., University of California, Berkeley
M.A. San Francisco State University
B.A. University of California, Santa Barbara
Awards
2009 Ingrid Nickleson Trust individual artists grant
2003 Samuel E. and Adele Golden Foundation Individual artist grant
2001 Humboldt State University Emeritus Faculty grant
1996 Humboldt State University Affirmative Action mini-grant
1997 2nd Place Award, Exemplary Contemporary, U.C. Santa Cruz
Juror: Peter Gordon, Head Curator, San Jose MOMA
1986 S.E.C.A. award nominee, SF Museum of Modern Art
1977 U.C. Art Affiliates Award for Excellence in Painting
Professional Memberships/Affiliations
2020-22 Artists Alliance/Jen Tough Gallery
2021-22 Visionary Arts Collective, directory of international artists
2020-22 All She Makes, directory of international women artists
Professional Experience
2021-22 Guest Lecturer, Catalyst Art Labs, Chicago, Illinois
1991-2020 Professor, Art, Humboldt State University
1989-91 Lecturer, Art, San Francisco State University
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